Texas can cut off funding for Planned Parenthood, federal court rules

The Associated Press

Published: 21 August 2012 05:40 PM

Updated: 21 August 2012 08:42 PM

A federal appeals court ruled late Tuesday that Texas can cut off funding for
Planned Parenthood clinics that provide health services to low-income women
before a trial over a new law that bans state money from going to organizations
tied to abortion providers.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans lifted a
federal judge’s temporary injunction that called for the funding to continue
pending an October trial on Planned Parenthood’s challenge to the law.

State officials sought to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood
clinics that provide family planning and health services to poor women as part
of the Texas Women’s Health Program after the state’s Republican-led Legislature
passed a law banning funds to organizations linked to abortion providers. No
state money goes to pay for abortions.

The appeal’s court decision means Texas is now free to enforce
its ban on clinics affiliated with abortion providers. Planned Parenthood
provides cancer screenings and other services — but not abortions — to about
half of the 130,000 low-income Texas women enrolled in the program, which is
designed to provide services to women who might not otherwise qualify for
Medicaid.

The ruling is the latest in the ongoing fight over Texas’ efforts
to halt funding to clinics affiliated with abortion providers. The federal
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has said that the new state rule
violates federal law. Federal funds paid for 90 percent, or about $35 million,
of the $40 million Women’s Health Program until the new rule went into effect.
Federal officials are now phasing out support for the program.

Gov. Rick Perry has promised that Texas will make up for the loss
of federal funds to keep the program going without Planned Parenthood’s
involvement. State officials have said ending the program would result in more
unplanned pregnancies that would cost the state much more than self-financing
the program.

In a statement, Perry called Tuesday’s ruling “a win for Texas
women, our rule of law and our state’s priority to protect life.”

“Texas will continue providing important health services for
women through this program in spite of the Obama Administration’s disregard for
our state law and unilateral decision to defund this program,” the governor
said.

Perry’s office referred questions about continued funding for the
Women’s Health Program to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, which
said it would move to begin enforcing the ban.

Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund,
said the case “has never been about Planned Parenthood — it’s about the women
who rely on Planned Parenthood for cancer screenings, birth control and
well-woman exams.”

“It is shocking that politics would get in the way of women
receiving access to basic health care,” Richards said in a statement.

The case began when Planned Parenthood sued, saying the new Texas
law violated its rights to free speech. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott
countered by arguing that lawmakers may decide which organizations receive state
funds.

A federal judge in Austin ruled in May that the funding should
continue pending the trial on Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit, saying there’s
sufficient evidence the state’s law is unconstitutional.

But the three-judge appellate panel disagreed, unanimously
finding that Planned Parenthood was unlikely to prevail in future arguments that
its free-speech rights were violated.

Abbott cheered the decision Tuesday, noting that it “rightfully
recognized that the taxpayer-funded Women’s Health Program is not required to
subsidize organizations that advocate for elective abortion.”

“We are encouraged by today’s decision and will continue to
defend the Women’s Health Program in court,” Abbot said in a statement.

The ruling comes as conservative groups across the nation try to
pass and enforce laws to put Planned Parenthood out of business and make getting
an abortion more difficult. Earlier this year the same court upheld a new Texas
law requiring doctors to perform a sonogram and provide women with a detailed
description of the fetus before carrying out an abortion.

Richards said the decision left Planned Parenthood “evaluating
every possible option to protect women’s health in Texas.”

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